Josh Hawley, a University of Missouri law professor, struck first with a television ad using old footage of his opponent for the nomination, Missouri Sen. Kurt Schaefer, calling himself a “moderate.”

The ad hangs on the charge that has long dogged Schaefer — that after years of representing a Democratic-leaning Senate district based in Columbia, his politics took a sharp conservative turn when he decided to run for attorney general.

Schaefer responded with a television ad accusing Hawley of having done legal work for a terrorist. In particular, the ad points to documents showing Hawley working for Abdul Maalik Muhammad, better known as the “American Taliban.”

Assisting Hawley in pushing back on the ad is former Republican senator Jack Danforth, who told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Schaefer’s ad is “absolutely awful” and “raises a question about the person making the charge.”